Memoir of the late John Wolley. 177 



work recorded the results of Mr. Dann's visit to Lapland, and 

 moreover an acquaintance of Wolley's had only three years 

 before made a tour in that country, and brought back specimens 

 and intelligence sufficient to excite the ardour of a moderately 

 keen naturalist. Then, again, there was the geographical con- 

 sideration that, from the very configuration of the land, the 

 country lying between the Arctic Ocean and a large inland sea 

 like the Baltic would probably be found to offer to many species 

 of birds peculiar advantages as a breeding station. All this 

 determined him upon making an expedition to the district lying 

 at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia. On the 23rd of April he 

 left Hull for Gothenbui'g, on his way to Tornea, which place he 

 intended to make his head-quarters. Provided with good in- 

 troductions, at Stockholm he obtained valuable intelligence from 

 Prof. Retzius and the late Herr Wahlberg, who has since so 

 unfortunately met his death in South Africa, and who had been 

 not long before on a botanical tour in Lapland. Having se- 

 cured the assistance of a student of the University to act as 

 interpreter, Wolley started off again, undeterred by the prospect 

 of a journey of 900 miles in a rough carriage, and at a season 

 of the year when, the winter-ways being broken up, and the 

 multitude of wide rivers still choked with rotten ice, travelling 

 is deemed by Swedes all but impossible. The journey was not, 

 howeverj without its reward. In the course of it he discovered 

 the Eagle Owl's nest, his graphic description of which reached 

 England just in time to be of use to Mr. Hewitson. At length 

 he arrived at Haparanda, a small frontier village opposite the 

 Russian town of Tornea. Northwards from this place, Finnish 

 is the language almost exclusively used, and it therefore became 

 necessary here to engage a second interpreter. This added 

 to the difficulties of the expedition ; for those only who have ex- 

 perienced it can be aware of the trouble and annoyance entailed 

 by the employment of a third language, especially in making 

 known to an ignorant population wants of which they have 

 hitherto had no idea, and by means of interpreters to whom they 

 are equally strange. 



It is not within the scope of this memoir to relate at length 

 the different stages of Wolley's journey. It will suffice to say 



